Waste Management 

The interactions of natural and human systems will be displayed by the generation of multi-layered indicator set to collect data in a database for all pilot cities (target cities), paving the way for a participatory process  to develop waste management and resource conservation strategies aiming at a future improvement of the current situation. Beside the generation of a database, another main objective of this work package is to analyse the present situation of waste management in the selected pilot cities (“the baseline”) in terms of environmental impacts, social and economic aspects. This will serve as basis for the impact assessment of the implemented strategies later on. The knowledge base developed under this research will be combined with an assessment of existing technologies and best-practice examples in waste prevention and management aiming at supporting the development of strategies and a selection of best practices in waste prevention and management policies. This supports the stakeholder process by providing information on best practices regarding tourism, waste and resource management.

Compendium of waste management practices in pilot cities and best practices in touristic cities

This report describes and highlights best practices on current waste prevention and management practices in the URBAN-WASTE pilot cases. This document shall support the selection of innovative strategies to be carried out at a later stage. A comparative policy review of national waste management strategies and targets in the European Union (EU) showed that there is no separate field of policies and instruments for waste generated by tourism neither on European level nor on the national level of EU member states.

The identified waste prevention and management strategies already existing in the URBAN-WASTE pilot cities as well as international best practice examples can be allocated to well-known policy instruments mainly based on information and awareness building as well as provision of infrastructure (e.g. bins for separate collection of food waste). But also regulatory instruments (e.g. ban of plastic bags), economic instruments and voluntary agreements (e.g. use of returnable containers) could be identified. Both, existing waste management and prevention practices in pilot cities as well as international best practice focus on nutrition of tourists. Most measures deal with food waste prevention as well as food waste management. The low-waste organisation of events and the promotion of re-use activities were also identified to be promising topics to reduce tourist waste generation. The promotion of resource consciousness in procurement among tourist accommodation establishments as well as food and beverage providers for tourists is another positive example identified. Most identified international best practice examples connected to tourist waste management refer to eco-labelling and accompanying guidelines. The hotel industry can considerably reduce their waste generation by implementing and following a waste management system. One interesting knowledge gained from international best practice examples is the recommendation to elaborate an extended inventory of waste types and sources as first step for waste prevention measures.